


On The Road

by PatterCake



Series: Farmworld [1]
Category: Adventure Time, farmworld au - Fandom, lumpy space princess - Fandom, lumpygrab - Fandom
Genre: AU, Adventure Time AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, Farmworld AU, Fortune Telling, Gen, Human AU, Magic, One Shot, Prequel, Supernatural - Freeform, Tarot Cards, The Stranger will show up again, Witch - Freeform, Witchcraft, also Lana is trans, and as Mexico is a predominantly Catholic culture...maybe LSP... is Catholic, antagonist, bcos lsp is quite a transmisogynistic character so I'm making her actually good rep, either way Lana is, lemongrab au, lumpygrab au, of sorts, tarot reading, too many au tags dam, yes Lana is Mexican as LSP is implied to also be Mexican
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23335645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatterCake/pseuds/PatterCake
Summary: Lana Seraphina Perciville has been forced to leave Brad, Mellissa, and everything she knows all because her stupid parents want to move to some place called Junk Town. But on the way there, she runs into someone... odd.
Relationships: I'm sorry brad but you were NOT a good boyfriend, it's mentioned that they dated but they've broken up, lana perciville/brad, lsp/brad
Series: Farmworld [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678189
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4
Collections: lumpygrab farmworld au





	On The Road

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this oneshot as a prequel of sorts to "The Storm" comic. And whoever can guess which in-universe character The Stranger is wins a prize.

According to her parents Lana had been born on the road. Not literally on it fortunately, but in some by-the-road cheap hospice when her parents were between schools. And it was true that as a child her parents had always been zipping around the country- taking long trips down roads that weaved in between still melting ice mountains, or taking boats across the great lakes left behind by the mushroom war’s bomb craters. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. 

The journey had been long and dusty and Lana had been carsick- which was a sad way to spend her last drive. Their car was going to be sold. It wasn’t built for dirty muddy country roads, it was built for the Big Town- like Lana was. It was going to be sold like all her children’s books and toys had been, and like her lamp and old furniture. Her old home. 

It was like a ravishing fire had swept through her life and burnt up everything important to her, leaving her sitting with her parents in the only diner for miles, bag in one hand, fries in the other. 

She was trying to savour what her mother had proudly said was “The last piece of junk food you’ll ever eat- you are getting rather thick around the middle sweetie.” but her fries weren’t even fries- they were just chunks of potato in a brown paper bag. Nothing like what she’d eaten back home. She’d used to eat chilli fries, and she hadn’t eaten them with her stupid parents judging her either, she’d eaten them with Brad. 

She forced herself to swallow and felt the salt painfully burn her throat as she remembered that. She didn’t want to think about it but your first love isn’t easily forgotten. Not when you lose it. Not when it’s your fault. Not when you were not good enough, not pretty enough and not smart enough to see what was going on. Every time they’d gone out with each other after… the incident had been awkward, they got upset with each other easily, didn’t know what to say. If she was writing a play with them as the main characters their conversations would mostly look like this:

Lana: pauses and says nothing. Looks at him awkwardly.

Brad: ditto. 

Yes before she left he’d promised he’d call, and that he’d write. But he’d promised to do that at home too, and he hadn’t. He’d promised to come to the premier of her play, with her, his GIRLFRIEND as the lead and he hadn’t. She remembered announcing each line while looking in the darkened room for his memorised face and seeing only strangers. At least Mellissa had been there- she was a friend Lana valued. Melissa had started tagging along on their dates as moral support, she knew how to make him laugh and start talking again. The funny, charming guy Lana had fallen in love with- she knew how to bring him back. 

And now she was miles and miles and miles away. 

Lana stood up, “I’m gonna go outside.”

“Ok sweetums,” her father replied, stirring the weird stew he’d ordered, “but be back soon cos we’re about to head off- and don’t wander off-”

“Oh my god I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!” Lana raised her voice at him, waving her fries around dramatically, “I can take care of my freaking self, ok! I’M IN MY TWEn…” the diner had fallen silent as the few people present paused their meals to watch her with entertained expressions, “ties…”

Lana nearly ran out of the building and started pacing around it. In her mind’s eye she could see herself: a mediocre looking fat girl with her fringe combed to cover the stupid star shaped birthmark on her forehead, and the rest of her hair coiling down her back in a ponytail. She was wearing a light purple dress that whisked around her chubby dark brown legs. An expression of masked anger on her brown face.

There was nothing around her but dirt, rocks, trees, more dirt, and the glaring sun. Far away in the distance Lana could see the beginnings of her new ‘home’- Junk Town. With the houses and barns so far away they looked like wooden children toys- like the building blocks she’d been forced to throw away. There were thin wisps of picturesque smoke coming out of chimneys that she, as someone who had been forced to improvise set designs and backdrops one too many times, had to appreciate for the sentimental flair they gave the scene. 

She wondered if there was even going to be a theatre there. Or were her parents finally going to get the satisfaction of watching her give that up alongside everything else this stupid move had taken from her. Not that it mattered. The letter from the theatre commissioning a new play lay in her trunk in the car. Answered with an enthusiastic yes but with no mention of a concept, of characters, a scenario or theme. Not even a genre. Her mind was as blank as the landscape around her, and she supposed that made her and this stupid place a good fit for each other. In a way. 

“Something on your mind?” came a strange voice behind Lana. She had a terrible sensation that someone was reaching a hand out to grab her, lurching for her. She spun around only to find a middle aged woman a few inches taller than her standing some feet away and smiling. 

“Uh…” this was probably someone who’d seen her outburst and had come to make fun of her-

“I’m not here for mockery,” the figure said, as if reading her mind, “I’m here because I in my profession am… attracted to poignantly suffering souls in need of divine guidance, and all that jazz.”

Profession? Lana examined the woman. She was wearing a long, dark green cloak with lime coloured stars messily embroidered on it. She could see some kind of… weirdly shaped clogs on the tips of her feet that were poking out underneath her cape. Her face was also very strange. Lana could tell she was wearing makeup, and not just a little bit of blush or even a full face, she looked like someone had dipped her in paint- droplets of it were dripping down her cheeks and forming a cracked crust around her eyelids and mouth. She reached her gloved hands into the light and shuffled the deck of tarot cards she was holding.

“So are you like… a fortune teller or?” 

She smiled again. “Or. Come with me.”

Lana was about to say that she couldn’t exactly go with some rando to wherever- her parents were waiting, and they were going to leave soon.

“Ah but…” The Stranger said before she could say anything, “of course if you have an important journey you desperately want to go on more than anything I won’t delay your leaving, and similarly if there are people waiting for I wouldn’t want to scare them and teach them a lesson about letting their young daughter run wild-”

“I’m an adult.” Lana said stiffly.

“Oh well… pardon me, in that case you can decide on your own what you wish to do, and where you want to go. I won’t keep you long. Just enough to give your parents a little scare- nothing else.”

Lana thought about it. She DID want to make her parents feel as bad as she could make them for all the stupid things they were putting her through just because they wanted to retire to the country- and only because they’d grown up there. Well what about where SHE’D grown up! And was still growing up!

The Stranger’s smile widened. “Come after me…”

Lana followed The Stranger to the back of the diner where a tiny makeshift tent had been put up. The Stranger ducked into it through the flap, and Lana followed. It shut behind her.

Lana sat on the dirt floor in pitch blackness, straining her eyes to see. Suddenly, there was a burst of green light and she blinked painfully as The Stranger lit some candles. Each one gave off an eerie green light. 

Lana knew all about illusions and manipulating space but she could swear the inside was much much- even IMPOSSIBLY bigger than the outside, with shelves that were filled with all sorts of strange items from teddybears to rings to garden shears to band shirts lining the large walls. 

The Stranger took off her gloves and wiped her makeup from her face with a cloth, so her face looked even more green in the candlelight- almost unnaturally so. “That’s much better. Now… what did you say your name was?”

“Lana…” she replied uncertainly.

“Well Lana…” The Stranger took out her deck again and started passing herbs and leaves over them, “while I purify my deck… might I ask you a few questions?”

Maybe it was the candle smoke but Lana felt strange suddenly. She wasn’t lightheaded or dizzy or sleepy yet the answer formed in her mouth without her even wanting it to. 

“Of course.” 

“Your birthday, what is it?” 

“October 15th.” Lana thought of all her birthdays, laying them out in a mental film reel that wasn’t for her to watch, the answer again jumping out of her without permission.

“Autumn- change, transition, rebirth, new life, a soul always in touch with it’s inner child.” the Stranger muttered as she passed the plants over the cards faster and faster, “… but also a great sense of loss, death-”

“Uh…” Lana was overwhelmed by the desire to leave, but couldn’t even imagine standing up.

“-15… 15 15… that is an important number for you isn’t it? You were 15 once…” again Lana’s mind flooded with memories- memories she’d rather not think about. Her quinceañera that she had to fight for and that dark time between schools when she first- fortunately she was used to blocking out these memories so the strange sensation stopped abruptly. Her mind was her own again. The Stranger frowned and continued muttering, “-made up only of odd numbers… 1 and 5… strangeness, sadness… oh dear…” she tittered. 

Lana didn’t say anything. But now that she’d beaten it off once, her mind felt clearer. Though she had the sense that this stranger had seen more than she wanted, somehow, whatever that meant. Maybe… maybe she really was a witch or… or something, and maybe she hadn’t seen everything but had seen enough to know that when she was born, and for 14 years she-

“The year?”

“Not telling you.” said Lana defiantly. 

“That’s alright,” the stranger smiled, “I already know- a new moon. Very good thing to be born under. You have a creative heart, you can deal with change. We can start.” 

She passed Lana the deck. “Shuffle it while I explain to you.”

Lana clumsily shuffled the cards that had feathered ends from being used as The Stranger told her “You will choose three cards. The first represents what happened, the second the happening, and the third what will happen. But they are all equally important- we can find out a lot about the future from the past and present. Our lives are very cyclical, they have patterns, they repeat again and again, everything stays right as we leave it. Everything stays… but it still changes. That is why we need the third card - of what will happen, happening, happened.” Lana carefully set down the deck next to the candles. “You can turn the first card over now. Lana.”

Lana shakily took the first card. It had a cracked, dark green surface (did this lady own anything that WASN’T green?) but when she turned it over, there was a freshly painted picture. A picture of a fat brown skinned girl who looked an awful lot like Lana, and even had her exact hairstyle, about to stubbornly step off a cliff. 

“The Fool.” said The Stranger.

“Great…” muttered Lana, “I’m soo flattered.”

“Now now…” The Stranger turned the card upside down to face her, “The fool isn’t a bad card. It means the beginning of something. Change- transition. It seems you went through a… rather big change in your past… But also ignoring danger- perhaps recklessness… does any of this ring a bell?”

“Reckless?” thought Lana as she sat in the tent of a suspicious stranger having recklessly rushed in after her, “I’m not reckless.” 

“-The Fool is often depicted holding a white rose to symbolise his childlike innocence… his purity… yet here yo- The Fool is holding what seems to be a yellow flower. A daffodil. Does that mean anything to you?”

Even without the prompting question Lana instantly remembered. It had been her fateful Quinceañera, she’d rushed into telling her parents about her because she would only have one once and if she missed her chance that would be it. She’d forever be denied the rite of passage that was given only to girls. Her parents gave in but then barely anybody came, her grandparents and godparents didn’t attend. Aside from her close friends who she’d chosen as her damas, nobody from her class came. Nobody except Brad, with his bouquet of yellow flowers and his confession. 

“I see…” said the Stranger, and moved to point a green finger at the mountains in the background, “The Fool is marked as a zero- it is both the start and end of the deck, meaning The Fool, recklessness, overlooking danger, is always present. Two themes seem to be emerging here… change and danger… turn the second card.”

Lana turned over another card and her heart sank again- she really wasn’t going to have a very nice time according to these cards. The second one was Death. 

The Stranger didn’t need to turn it to face her as the card had been turned over upside down, so she studied it. Her eyes widened as she looked at it- which only made Lana feel worse. She had an awful suspicion that this person was the real deal. With a green finger, she traced the outline of The Reaper’s skull. It was a strange skull- an animal’s one, with brown horns curling out from it. Two green fires not unlike the ones in front of Lana were burning in the hollow skull sockets. “The third scholar…” she whispered and looked up at Lana with a frightening grin. The green light cast strange shadows around her eyes, and in her mouth Lana could faintly see the sharp outlines of pointed teeth. 

“You are the one I want.”

It was like invisible ropes that had just been lightly coiled around her were suddenly pulled tight, trapping her in the tent until The Stranger released her.

“Death in it’s reversed position,” she said more to herself than to Lana, “has many meanings… it can mean a refusal to accept change, it can mean the end of something good.” she turned the card around to face Lana.

The skeleton with the animal skull was riding on a huge ginger dog towards some people, who were drawn pitifully tiny compared to the giant. A young boy in a white bear hat, flailing a metal arm, and an older woman in a black hat next to him, begging him to spare them. Lying between them and the reaper- or the ‘third scholar’ as the Stranger had called him, was a young man. His skin had a bluish tint and his clothes were speckled white with frost. Other than that, Lana couldn’t help noticing his comically long nose. 

“Though it can also mean a narrow escape from death…” she fixed her stare on the unconscious body, “but maybe not. Though maybe… normally this card features either a sunset or a river with a boat to symbolise passing on. But here it appears to be day. And change… danger again… for you at least.”

“You say normally this card- this is like, your card right? And your pack? You say that as if it changes or… as if it’s new…”

“But it is new. To me.” The Stranger said elusively. “Next card, the one I’m sure you’re waiting for.”

The third card was turned over- though Lana felt like it wasn’t her turning it. The sensation felt as if it was delayed or numbed. Like someone else felt it before she did. That was why she tried to shake her hand as she carried it and dropped the card so it landed sideways, covering Death. 

“Hmm… neither in the upright or reversed position. Perhaps both. Perhaps neither.” said The Stranger curiously. 

Lana didn’t know much about tarot cards but even she could tell this one wasn’t any good either- The Tower. That probably meant she was going to be hit with a car or something.  
“There aren’t any cars on the card, stupid girl.” the Stranger said humorously, “The Tower also means change- sudden change. Yes it can, as you say, mean accidents-”

“I didn’t say anything!” thought Lana. 

“Didn’t you? Now this card truly means destruction-” the exact thing that was being destroyed in the card looked like a wooden tower- with a burning lace curtain in it’s window and a wooden roof being struck by lightning. There was a figure in a nightdress falling from the window, looking about as panicked as you’d expect to be in that situation, and about to land in a burning tree. 

“But in the reversed position it can mean averting disaster. Perhaps here it means both. Whoever this-” the Stranger tapped the falling person with her finger, “is- and I think I’ve met this awful young man before- you’re going to bring either great misfortune or salvation to each other. Maybe both. He’s already shown up twice. And again… it looks like things are going to be getting shaken up here pretty soon. Which is great! Things were getting a little boring.”

“Can I go?” asked Lana, and it felt like her voice had to travel a long way before it came out of her mouth. The Stranger frowned in response, probably thinking about her paycheck. “How much do you want?” Lana would’ve gladly given her everything in her bag if she’d just let her go.

The Stranger took the deck and sorted through it, looking for something. When she found it, her face lit up, and she paused to admire it for a moment.

“You see this card.” The Stranger held up a card coloured in vibrant yellows and red lines streaming diagonally onto an adoring crowd, emanating from the card’s central figure like light. In the centre was a richly dressed woman, and while it may have been the green lighting of the candles Lana could’ve sworn the woman’s skin (like the Stranger’s) was green. In one hand she held a sceptre, and on her head was a crown that had been coated in golden foil so it caught the light as the Stranger moved it. The crown was studded with three brilliant rubies. They were also more than just drawings and were studded with actual gemsl- probably glass though the blood red vibrancy of them was convincing. The light that shone through them streaked the figure’s face in swathes of power hungry scarlet, lighting up the wide green eyes in frenzy.

“This…” she said lovingly, “is my desire… and no money can get it for me. Though I’ll need a few nicknacks here and there... You already said you’ll pay me, yeah?”

Lana hadn’t exactly said that. She’d assumed there would be a price but-

“Assumptions are permission, little Lana. I’ll take what I need from you… when you have it… now good day. I sense a very particular cloud of worry coming our way, Mommy’s looking for you.” 

The Stranger blew out the candles in one go with such a strong, wind like breath that Lana’s heavy hair swung back, surrounded by gusts of smoke she was forced to inhale. 

“You can go now.” 

Lana remembered nothing after that. One moment she was in a smoky green lit room and then standing outside the diner. Her fries- now cold- in one hand and her bag in the other. She felt as if she had been submerged and had suddenly swam back up to the surface, gasping for breath. 

“Lana honey we’re sorry!” came her father’s voice next to her- she hadn’t even realised he was standing there. “We know it’s hard for you to just suddenly move like this, but we think it’ll be good for you.”

“Yeah,” Lana’s mother linked her arm around her husband’s, “when you start breathing that fresh air you’ll never want to go back.”

Lana couldn’t manage anything other than, “Hm.” 

Still dazed, she followed her parents to their car, and got in the back. The diner melted into the bare landscape as they drove away and Lana repeated to herself, “Magic isn’t real.. It wasn’t real… you can do all sorts of ‘magic’ with props and setting and whatever weird drugs she had in the candles she was burning. Yeah that’s probably it. Maybe I even hallucinated the whole thing like a dumbass while she robbed me.” But Lana knew without checking that none of her things had been taken. Whatever The Stranger wanted she was going to come and find her for. Lana had an awful feeling she hadn’t seen the last of that fortuneteller. But that also made no sense- she hadn’t even known where they were going. Or where they’d be staying. 

She clung to these explanations as she drifted into an uneasy sleep. Green candles, lightning, skeletons and the recurring young man burned into her restless dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, you can read the comic continuation here https://problemon.tumblr.com/post/190311986634/part-1 and after that it's fanfic sequel.


End file.
